


coloring outside the lines

by Jupiter117



Series: Salt & Burn [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Anti Team Cap, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Civil War Team Iron Man, Don't Like Don't Read, M/M, Not Steve Rogers Friendly, Protective Tony Stark, Seriously I Mean It, Soulmates, Team Iron Man, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, don't read if you like team cap, not team Cap friendly, not wanda maximoff friendly, sort of anyway? it's a different take on a soulmate au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22673389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jupiter117/pseuds/Jupiter117
Summary: “I worked through my anger towards you awhile ago. You’re off the hook,” Tony says. He can feel Barnes’s eyes on him as he closes up the panels on his arm. He knows he probably sounds crazy, and that’s pretty understandable, considering everything. After all, they’ve gone through a lot–with a large chunk of it dealing with each other’s actions. Tony won’t take back his statement, though. It’s the truth.“I don’t… I don’t deserve…”Closing up his tool case, Tony simply shrugs at him. “You don’t choose when someone forgives you, Barnes,” he says, standing from the bench. “Remember that.”// All works in this series can be read as stand alones //
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Series: Salt & Burn [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1534754
Comments: 15
Kudos: 1109





	coloring outside the lines

**Author's Note:**

> Comments moderated bc some of y’all don’t know how to keep out of the “anti team cap” tag lol

Tony’s skin is a patchwork assortment of colors. 

_ Soulmate marks _ people call them, because people are romantic like that, but in reality, love has very little to do with it. It’s more of a descriptor of fate; a connection between two people for one reason or another, that oftentimes is as far away from love as it could possibly be. 

For example, neither mark from his parents are ones of love. The swatch of sapphire blue across the back of Tony’s knuckles are from when Maria had sat beside him at the piano at age six, had placed her fingers over his, and shown him how to play. The first bruise that Howard gave him had been black as sin at first, then mottled purple, an ugly yellow--and when the blotch on Tony’s left forearm turned a muddled green and never went away, age five, he’d later realize some of the heat of that touch had been the moment of branding in that particular soulmark. 

He’d thought, for a long time, that Maria’s blue had meant  _ reliability _ and  _ stability. _ In time, he learned that blue was also  _ sorrow _ and  _ passivity. _ In contrast, Tony never doubted the meaning of Howard’s--it was always  _ envy _ and  _ disgust. _

That wasn’t to say that all his marks were bad. Jarvis was a  _ balancing  _ smudge of burnt orange over his left knee from patching it up when he’d scraped it while playing outside; Rhodey’s  _ reliable, loyal _ handprint was an earthly brown on the back of his neck where Rhodey had soothed him, held him when he was drunk and crying his first year at MIT. Tony liked to think that it was the same shade as Rhodey’s skin; it seemed rather appropriate, after all. Pepper’s royal purple dash of  _ wisdom _ was forever laid into the skin inside his right elbow, the guiding touch having taken him out of a gala event and into the mansion’s gardens, when he’d been young and stupid, had fucked up an attempt at a contract as per Obie’s request and had nearly had a panic attack from fear of what his godfather would think of him. Even Happy has claim to a protective streak of black on Tony’s shoulder, from where he’d knocked him out of the way of a stalker fan with one too many grudges against him.

Those are the only good ones.

New marks crop up on him. Tony gains twelve alone while he’s at MIT. Tiberius Stone’s is a painful red on his hip that tricked him, at first, into thinking it was love, but only reflects the wounds he leaves, inside and out, in his wake. In contrast, Sunset Bain is a snobby purple. She’s sneaky and mean and turns him inside out, her fingers curled over the back of his ear like he’s a dog to be won over. A few dozen appear after he takes over SI, and his skin becomes a canvas of colors, the people he sleeps with and parties with and tussles with all leaving their marks. 

Then, Yinsen leaves a white circle of  _ new beginnings _ around his ankle, which the doctor says came from when Tony was on the makeshift operation table, Yinsen squeezing there for just a moment once his vitals had stabilized. Obadiah’s faithfully yellow gash on his sternum is cut through by the arc reactor that Yinsen puts there. 

Tony can taste the betrayal it  _ actually _ represents when he sees the edges of it mangled up in the scars around the empty metal casing Obadiah’s left behind.

Then, for a long time, he gains no new marks. He doesn’t trust so easily; he doesn’t let himself open up like that. He prepares for the worst, always, and as such, the colors stay away, no lesson left to be taught. Maybe it’s a little bit lonely; maybe it’s a little bit hard. His colors never fade, because he never forgets them, never feels the emotions tied to them fade or soften with the passing of time. His marks are as bright as the day he got each one, and it stays that way.

Then comes the Avengers Initiative.

It takes three touches for Steve to leave his mark. He bats off Tony’s hand from his shoulder, and there’s no color. The explosion rocks the quinjet and he grabs Tony’s arm, fingers slipping, not able to grasp fully, and there’s no color. But then, his hands lay firm and steady on his sides, on the softness of his abdomen, and Tony feels the burn, the  _ heat _ of something that isn’t just the super soldier’s heightened temperature. 

There isn’t time to check it. He suits up and flies out. He works with Steve and they stabilize the quinjet. They come back, and things have gone absolutely FUBAR, and suddenly, they have a war on their hands. So Tony fights with the Avengers. He flies a nuke into space. He goes for shawarma with the team. He goes home.

He stands in front of the mirror before the shower he’d intended to take, and he stares at the hands on his sides. They’re blood red and brilliant, the outline of Steve’s hands forever imprinted on him. It looks like someone has painted them on, every stroke precise, every line perfect as it could be. For all of Tony’s colors and marks, this is only the second time he’s ever had red.

Tony thinks, maybe this time, this could be  _ love. _

So he builds floors for every member of the team.

They stay empty.

But that’s okay. His marks have almost never gained their true meanings at first. He decides he has to wait, then. He visits Shield sometimes. He starts texting Steve, starts swinging by to take him on walks and to see the sights that New York has to offer. Steve comes to galas with him sometimes. They become  _ friends _ and Tony thinks,  _ yes, _ he was right. He had to have been right.

He’s planning on asking Steve to stay during that stupid party he’d thrown at the tower, but he never has the chance. Ultron drags its strange, half mutilated body into the room, and everything takes a turn for the worse from there on out. They fall apart and work together; they rally against Tony, and Tony takes the blame, because it’s  _ his fault _ , and no one can convince him otherwise. It rattles around in his chest, another mistake to atone for, adding to his collection. And it hurts, it  _ does _ , because they’re supposed to be a team. They’re supposed to help each other. But in the end, they’re right. Of course they’re right.

Steve calls the compound  _ home _ and Tony’s offer of the tower turns to ash in his mouth. The marks seem to burn, but it’s okay. He just has to wait. He can do that. He can.

And then Charlie Spencer’s mother spreads  _ black _ on his chest, eating away at some of the other marks there, her grief and hate so bitter and cloying that it seeps into Tony’s very bones and makes a home there.

His life turns into a shitshow. The team’s colors on his body change meaning. Natasha’s two golden fingers on the inside of his wrist become  _ self-important. _ Clint’s streak of orange on his elbow turns into  _ insincerity. _ Wanda’s magic from her induced nightmare accounts for the streak of black on his scalp that leaks like ink towards his ear, though her meaning stays the same-- _ power. _

Thor is offworld, but the friendly slap on the back of his shoulder is a  _ lonely  _ sort of cornflower blue now. Bruce’s practical taupe touch at his temple feels like  _ caution _ , and is a lesson he should have listened to. Vision is not human; he does not leave a mark. Tony is okay with that. Jarvis--his AI Jarvis--hadn’t been able to leave a mark, either. It’s a terrible thing to think and leaves him sick with guilt, but he’s glad that Vision doesn’t get any more of what Jarvis didn’t have.

They meet at the airport. They fight. Tony doesn’t think about what the red hands on his sides might mean. He doesn’t. He  _ can’t. _ He doesn’t want to know what will happen if he gives in to those thoughts. He’s already dealing with a chest that feels like an impending heart attack, and he’s absently, terrifying sure that if he gives in and analyzes that color, he’ll never recover from it.

Turns out, he’s right about that anyway.

Tony watches Steve’s retreating back as he drags Barnes out of the bunker, his body growing cold in the subzero temps, the marks on his sides  _ burning. _ He should have listened to Bruce; his temple seems to throb in agreement. Bruce had been right from the very beginning, and no one had listened to him, not really. Not as much as they should have. 

They have always been a ticking time bomb.

Steve’s marks are red. His hands are red. The blood on Tony’s face is red, and the snow along that road, though the quality of the surveillance camera makes it look grey, must have been  _ red, red, red. _

Aggression. Strain. Defiance. Stress. Anger. Power.

Danger. 

These are the things that Steve’s marks mean. There is no love there. There never has been. And when Friday manages to lock down his location and send him aid, Tony thinks that maybe,  _ maybe, _ if he were to touch Steve, lay his hand over the man’s heart, he might draw away and find a perfect imprint of frost on the man’s pale Irish skin. White as snow, cold as death, he would tell Steve without words that he is  _ empty. _ That there is nothing left between them. That there never will be again. 

He goes home.

\---

Tony’s body is an ugly conglomeration of colors. He can count on one hand the number of marks that are good out of the dozens that have made a patchwork of his skin. For awhile, though, he gains no new marks.

\---

Eventually, the Rogues are pardoned. They are brought back into the fold. The country welcomes them with open arms, though they have to sign the revised Accords, because there is a bigger threat looming. There is something coming. Tony had tried to prevent it; all they can do now is prepare for it. Which means all the Avengers coming back together as one. 

It also means that Tony is going to absolutely destroy Thaddeus Ross, because that slimy, awful, sorry excuse for a man has managed to sway the Accords council into pressuring Tony to allow them back into his compound. 

He’d hoped for at least some level of separation--but he’s not going to get it. Instead, they claim that if they’re going to fight together, then they need to live together. It’s a bunch of bullshit, if he is to be perfectly honest, but he’s come this far with the Accords, and he won’t throw it away simply because he doesn’t want the Rogues back in his home. But no one said he has to be there when they arrive--and so he isn’t, taking time at his tower to video conference with Harley, guiding him through a snag the teenager had come across in his latest attempt to fix that old Austin-Healey 3000 that Tony had given him for his birthday. Was it petty? Probably. But honestly, helping to guide and teach the next generation of geniuses was far more important than giving the Rogues a chance to spit venom and cruelties at him.

Of course, Tony couldn’t stay away forever. The threat of the Mad Titan meant that he had to show up for weekly training sessions, continue designing new weapons and tools that had to be tested out, and make sure everyone was on the same page in the scenario meetings that took place every other week. Most of the time, Tony could handle it. The petty squabbling rolled off his back and he had to focus on not showing his thoughts on how childish they were being. Rhodey, having been assigned as their leader due to his military experience and the Accords council’s wariness towards putting Rogers back in charge, was much the same, so Tony didn’t feel alone in that. But sometimes, their words were cutting, their behavior intentionally orchestrated to garner a reaction. The joke remained on them--for whatever pain they wrought, Tony kept it locked down tight behind the smiling, unreadable mask that so many years fighting against the press had given him. 

Part of keeping the place running, though, were the security checks that he put Friday through. Normally, he updated those twice a year; she was learning quickly and was, while not a replacement for Jarvis, stunningly capable in her own way. With the Rogues at the Compound and his knowledge that they weren’t above searching for information wherever they could get it, he would stop by for two days every month, using a different guest room each time to sleep while she ran diagnostic scans, and update any area that they had exposed the morning after. 

Tony was well aware that much of his actions were driven by paranoia. However, as paranoia was wont to do, he didn’t particularly  _ care _ . If it kept his family, his  _ real _ family safe, then he would do whatever was necessary. 

He didn’t mind those visits. It was easy to remain out of sight of the Rogues; they weren’t allowed on the same floor as his workshop and Friday’s server room, let alone actually be able to find a way to sneak in. Picking a guest room at random meant they never knew where to find him so they couldn’t sit outside the door and wait for him to come out, and his departures were quick and quiet. Well, as quiet as roaring out of his garage with one of his favorite sports cars could be, but quiet enough that he wasn’t stopped.

Of course, like all things, Barnes had to be the one to disrupt that careful routine.

With the team unaware of his presence, for the most part, Tony steps out of his guest room very late in the night. He’d hardly eaten all day and, while he was used to not caring about that, Rhodey had made him promise after returning from Siberia that he’d take better care of himself. If it hadn’t been Rhodey, he likely would have ignored the plea. But here he is anyway, striding quietly down the hall to the kitchen intent on at least a quick peanut butter sandwich.

Friday is good at warning him when the Rogues are within his path, or when one of them is looking for him. With Friday rebooting, however, that function is offline; only the security measures remain online. And as much as Tony doesn’t like it, stepping into the kitchen and finding Barnes there is not, in fact, a security issue.

The man is bent over at the table. Head in his hands, hair hanging in greasy, dirty strands around his face, Tony can’t help but feel a pang of…  _ something _ strike him just behind his ribs. The man has everything he could ever want--showers that don’t run out of hot water, food and water for days, a reliable arsenal should he ever feel the need to suddenly turn homicidal, and even a bed with satin sheets. He’s aware that Barnes probably isn’t right in the head--who would be after seventy years of torture?--but it’s so easy to lump him in with Rogers to think that he would be enjoying his stay. Or, hell, willing to demand  _ more _ from the billionaire at his beck and call. Instead, he’s here looking like a kicked puppy, Rogers nowhere in sight.

“Don’t let me disturb your brooding, Robocop,” he says as he takes a wide berth around the table. “Just getting a snack and then I’ll be out of your Pantene Pro-V hair quicker than you know.”

Barnes doesn’t reply which, alright, fair point. Tony isn’t exactly easy with the meeting either, and he’s hyper aware of the man at the table as he lightly toasts his bread and slathers peanut butter on it, the heat just starting to melt the spread exactly how he likes it. The whole process, Barnes doesn’t move. It’s… Well, it shouldn’t be concerning, because this is the Winter Soldier, the man who definitely has had to stake out missions before, and other such ridiculous assassin stuff. But it  _ is _ concerning, because Tony has absolutely no sense of self preservation. So instead of leaving off with his sandwich, Tony hesitates; he takes into consideration the man’s appearance once again, but also looks closer. Barnes is breathing shallowly, quickly. He can’t see his eyes, shielded by hair and hands as they are, but from the tiny tremors running through him, Tony can guess that this is no ordinary midnight sulk. And, like the idiot he is, Tony decides that since he’s here, he might as well try to help. 

He’s not over his parents’ death, per say, but he’s forgiven Barnes’s involvement in it. The reaction in Siberia had never really been about Barnes. Tony’s been through torture himself, and his only lasted three months. He can’t imagine what seventy years of it was like and knew, from a rational standpoint, that Hydra had taken away every inch of Barnes that might have objected to the missions--knew that Barnes had fought, and never stopped fighting, and that was why the wipes were so frequent, so… Routine. No, Tony’s reaction had been born from betrayal. Rogers had known for so long, had kept that information from him, and then torn the Avengers apart to save the man that had pulled the trigger. Hell--not even to  _ save _ Barnes, but just to  _ run _ with him.

No, Barnes is not Tony’s problem anymore. He barely had been to begin with.

“Listen, Barnes,” he starts off, pausing just to the side of him. “I know I’m pretty much the last person you want to see, but if you ever need it, I’m always willing to lend an ear. I’m sure Rogers has that covered, but…” He shrugs one shoulder, working to appear nonchalant about it. “I’m a bit more of a night owl than he is. From my experience, that’s where the nightmares like to come out to play.” Barnes doesn’t respond. Again, Tony can tell when he’s not particularly wanted. It doesn’t bother him, so he just gives a firm nod. “Good talk.”

In one last effort to offer at least some sort of comfort, Tony reaches out and pats Barnes’s shoulder.

In an instant, Barnes’s flesh hand wraps tight around his throat. He is slammed back into one of the cupboards, skull bouncing painfully off the dark wood; stars light up in Tony’s vision and he reaches up, scrabbling at the man’s wrist, gasping for air that just won’t come. His feet are just barely on the ground, and his face is filling with blood quickly; the scratches he leaves on Barnes’s arm won’t last an hour, he’s sure, the thought of it an absent, unattached deduction in the back of his head. 

Fortunately, this is something that the remaining security protocols  _ are _ monitoring. The emergency klaxon blares to life throughout the compound, bright lights bathing the kitchen in an unearthly glow. “B… Bar...nes!” Tony tries to get out. It’s difficult, his tongue thick in his mouth, his throat burning, like he’s swallowed a white hot cinder. Barnes isn’t letting go, though, and Tony has a spare thought to wonder if this is how he’s going to die--not by Rogers’ shield the day he finally goes too far, not on the battlefield with the Mad Titan when he comes, but by James Buchanen Barnes’s hand, all because he wanted a  _ sandwich. _ A sandwich that he doesn’t even know where it is at the moment. 

His tense muscles are starting to loosen, darkness creeping over his vision to a disconcerting amount, when he hears a distant shout of, “Bucky!”

A moment later, the pressure is relieved--and so is the support. Tony crumbles, dropping to the floor inelegantly. Rogers is a blur of golden hair in his periphery as he gasps for air, coughing, trying not to choke. There’s yelling in the background, his body tingling and angry with him, and his neck feels like it’s on fire. 

“What the hell did you do, Stark?” Rogers demands. The words come to him a bit fuzzy, dampened, and if he could fucking  _ breathe, _ he would have laughed in Rogers’ face. Trust him to come into a scene like he had and immediately presume it to be Tony’s fault. It wouldn’t be the first time, and he’s sure it won’t be the last. 

Luckily, he does have at least one person in his corner for all this. “Secure Barnes,” Rhodey demands. His voice is cold fury, and Rogers tries to argue--but Rhodey cuts him off with all the authority that his positions as a soldier and the Avengers’ leader afford to him. “Now, Captain! I don’t care who started the fight, they need to be away from each other  _ immediately!” _

Tony might lose track of time there for a moment--because the next thing he knows, Rhodey’s hands are gentle on him, the whir of his braces a familiar sound, his fingers probing at his head and feeling at the blooming bruises across his throat. “Oh, Tony,” the man says, tipping his head up so that their eyes meet. He’s dazed, certainly, but there’s no concussion, and now that he has his air back, Rhodey is clear in his gaze. Tony almost wishes he wasn’t; there’s a look of sadness there, of worry and resignation and that quiet strength he only gets when he knows Tony needs it. “C’mon, man. Let’s get you to my room, yeah? You should really go to medical, but...” His eyes drop to Tony’s throat again and he can’t tell what his friend is thinking. He won’t fight it, though. Going to medical means putting the incident on paper--and with the incident documented, it would need to be reported to the Accords council. That’s the last thing Tony wants to deal with right now.

So he lets Rhodey hoist him up to his feet. They lean on each other as they head down the hall, the other Rogues here and there as they go, up until Rhodey barks at them to get out of their business. They get to Rhodey’s room and the door locks behind them per the man’s request; Tony is set gently on the bed while he goes to fetch a cool wet cloth from the bathroom, returning to gently press it over the tender flesh. There’s a small mirror in his other hand, though, and even dazed as Tony is, he doesn’t miss the detail.

“What--” He has to cut himself off, a cough forcing its way out of his chest, rattling him. “What’s the mirror for?” Rhodey gets a pained look on his face at the question; Tony knows he’s not going to like this.

“Tony,” he says with a sigh, and there’s that soft tone, that big brother tone. It’s the tone that Rhodey had used when he’d shared his first deployment date and when he’d found out Sunset Bain was spreading private pictures around, when he’d broken the news that Grandma Rhodes had passed away and a million other things that were bad news that Rhodey had to tell him. “I’m so sorry, Tones. I really am.”

It doesn’t take much for Tony to make the connection then, between his best friend’s resignation and the tingling sensation still on his neck. He closes his eyes and breathes for a few moments, relishing the sweet air, nearly wishing that Barnes had finished the job. But he’s nothing if not stubborn, and so he opens his eyes and holds out his hand for the mirror. Silently, Rhodey passes it over.

When Tony lifts it, his fears are confirmed. There, spread out from the base of his throat and following the curve of fingers up near his ear, is a perfect, stained red impression of Barnes’s hand. It looks as though someone has spilt paint down his neck but this—this is his forever. This is another point of pain, one that he can’t hide. 

For a moment, Tony’s belief in God returns and he wonders,  _ Why? Why me? Why must I be nothing but the consequences of everyone else? _

God, as He never has, doesn’t answer him. 

But Rhodey is there, and Rhodey is almost as good. He leans forward and Rhodey is there to catch him; he’s shaking and exhausted, his tears silent as they seep into the other man’s sleep shirt. Rhodey doesn’t say anything—he just tucks his chin over Tony’s head and holds him, lets him mourn the unknown future that this soul mark will bring. It’s all Tony can do not to fall apart, but he knows even if he does, Rhodey is there to fit the pieces back together. He always has; Tony doesn’t doubt his ability, even now.

There’s nothing they can do but move forward, now. Rhodey can hold him, keep him from falling to pieces for the time being, but it can’t stop the inevitable. It can’t prevent the press from finding out; it can’t stop talk show hosts and the Accords council and everyone that Tony knows and doesn’t know from asking what the hell had happened--or who had left the mark.

And they do. Of course they do.

\---

It’s not like the other marks. He can’t hide it.

So he doesn’t.

After that night, Tony goes back out into the public loud and proud. He’s bombarded with questions; he has answers for everyone, but never the same one, never the  _ real _ one.  _ I met a hot chick with a kink, _ he says.  _ Turns out super villains leave marks too, _ he tells a reporter.  _ It’s always been there, I’m just tired of wearing makeup, _ he teases on a late night talk show. They’re all viable excuses, they all seem just as honest and trustworthy as the last, his press smile bright, his fingers carefully curled in his pockets, his nausea and anger and grief locked down in him, the vault they are stuck in thicker and stronger than his latest suit.

And it works.

There are gossip rags. Paparazzi try to get the clearest view of his mark as they can. Talk shows make jokes about it. Pepper and Rhodey keep in close contact. Friday helpfully filters out any noise about the mark when he wants to watch the news or read articles online. The Rogues, from what Friday tells him, are incredibly uncomfortable every time the television shows him or speculates on the mark’s origin, its  _ meaning _ . Tony finds a small amount of vindictiveness in that fact. 

\---

The next time he sees Barnes, it’s because the man had used it to break a seventy foot fall from a collapsing building. 

Tony had warned him of course--but it seemed that wasn’t enough, Steve’s reddened face spitting vitriol at him less than ten inches away as soon as the battle was over. Rhodey had been quick to intervene as the Rogues’ leader, but he had to admit that Tony was the only one that could help Barnes, unless they wanted to ship him all the way to Wakanda. Tony, like the idiot he is, agrees. Maybe Pepper was right; maybe he  _ is _ a glutton for punishment. 

Whatever the reason, he shuts off the neuroreceptors in Barnes’s arm to free him from pain, and then rides with him back to the Compound in the Quinjet, gesturing for him to follow him down into the lab. Barnes comes without complaint. Actually, Barnes comes without any noise at all, complaint or otherwise, but that’s normal. Barnes doesn’t talk much. Tony’s spent his whole life using words to deflect and defend, but even he can see that silence can offer the exact same type of protection.

It doesn’t stop Barnes from staring, though, when they enter the lab. Tony remembers distantly the few times Howard had spoken of Barnes, how he’d been enthralled with tech, always eager to get a look at the latest sci fi book when they were stationed in towns and cities, how he’d been fascinated with the things Howard had made. He doesn’t know if that still rings true for Barnes, but he allows him to look anyway, even manages to talk about a few of the projects that catches Barnes’s eyes, explaining in somewhat simple terms that, hopefully, aren’t too far beyond Barnes’s comprehension. The man is wicked smart even if he doesn’t like to show it; Barnes nods a few times and he sees no hint of confusion or annoyance, the way the others would get when he talked about his inventions.

They can’t put it off forever, though. Tony has Barnes sit at one of the tables; he’d seen the chair in Siberia, and after his research when he’d returned home, he knows putting him in anything resembling that would be a surefire way to get himself a scar that has nothing to do with soul marks. So instead, with Barnes seated on a bench, Tony brings over his tools. He straddles the bench himself, the tool case open on the table, and talks as he opens up the plates of Barnes’s arm. Mostly it’s about nothing--the latest board meeting he attended, the ideas he has for the next gala for the Maria Stark Relief Fund. But when he does something new, he tells Barnes. He warns him about the wires he’s moving, the gears he’s fixing. He lets him know each and every repair he makes, while the man is still and silent before him.

There’s something in Barnes that is fighting to come out. Tony can see it in the strain around his eyes, the lock of his jaw. But he continues working, continues talking, until Barnes gathers up his own courage to speak. When he does, Tony pulls his hands away from his arm, and listens.

“Why?” he asks.

It’s a simple question. There are a hundred different answers to it. “Why what?” Tony returns, leaning away from him to give him a bit of room to breathe. It’s been a few hours since they started; his back complains sharply for its lack of support and his neck aches from the angle its been tilted at, and yet he waits anyway, not moving more than necessary. 

Tony sees the way he grinds his jaw before speaking again. “Why’re you helping me?” Barnes finally clarifies. “After… After everything?”

Reaching for a cloth to wipe the grease and oil from his fingers, Tony stalls for time. He’d expected this question at some point--just not this soon. He gets off what he can from the top layer of his skin, then looks up at Barnes. “Two reasons, Ice Pop.” He holds up a finger. “One, I shouldn’t have touched you when you were having your--episode. Attack. Whatever it was, I should have known better than to touch you, ‘cause I definitely saw the signs. You don’t control when you put a mark on someone, so that’s not your fault.” A second finger stretched next to the first. “Two, I worked through my anger towards you awhile ago. You’re off the hook.”

Tony can feel Barnes’s eyes on him as he closes up the panels on his arm. He knows he probably sounds crazy, and that’s pretty understandable, considering everything. After all, they’ve gone through a lot--with a large chunk of it dealing with each other’s actions. Tony won’t take back his statement, though. It’s the truth.

“I don’t… I don’t deserve…”

Closing up his tool case, Tony simply shrugs at him. “You don’t choose when someone forgives you, Barnes,” he says, standing from the bench. “Remember that.”

Barnes is as much a ghost leaving as he was coming down--but Tony feels his eyes on the back of his neck regardless. By the time Tony turns to look, Barnes is gone, the watched sensation fading with it.

\---

It starts like this.

The team gets called out on a mission. Sometimes it’s just the Rogues; sometimes it’s everyone. Barnes inevitably punches a hole through something that he shouldn’t, or lands wrong, or gets himself in the way of something’s attack. His arm needs repairing; Tony is the only one that can repair it. Tony comes to the compound and he spends hours with Barnes in the workshop, talking and scolding and teasing Barnes. Barnes is stupid and irrational, too quick to act, off his rocker, he tells him. Barnes is quiet, so very quiet, but sometimes--sometimes Barnes will smile. Just a little. Just a touch. It disappears always, and quickly, but it is there, over and over, until he’s smiling at every little quip Tony has, until Tony feels a spark of  _ something _ in his chest every time he sees that smile, until he starts to look a little more fed, a little more clean, a little more kempt. And Tony--Tony doesn’t realize it, because he has so much else on his plate, not even when Barnes pauses at the door again after his arm has been successfully returned to working condition.

Barnes doesn’t leave before Tony turns to him. 

“Everything alright there, Toy Soldier?”

That smile comes back, just a little quirk at the corner of Barnes’s mouth. “Just trying to figure you out, котенок,” he replies. Which, okay. Tony hadn’t been expecting an answer. And the Russian is a bit of a surprise, something which he’ll definitely have to look up later, because he’s fairly sure that was a nickname in return for his own. Look up later, that is, because he’s still blinking in surprise when Barnes turns and walks out.

\---

It turns into this.

The first thing Tony does the next time Barnes fries half of his arm is point a wrench at him and accuse, “You called me kitten last time!”

And there’s that smile again, even as Barnes settles onto the couch. They’d discussed it before; the softness of it, the texture and the smell and the position of it in the room, helped to keep Barnes rooted firmly in the present. Tony follows him over with his tool kit, pouting. “Yes,” Barnes replies, not a trace of an apology in his voice. 

“I’m not!”

Barnes lifts his brow at the annoyed huff. He doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t need to. Tony groans and plops next to him on the sofa, nimble fingers quickly releasing the arm’s hatches, opening right up to him with ease. He taps those fingers on the open plate, then, and looks up at Barnes. “And,” he says, his voice dipping into a more somber tone, more serious. “Stop doing this to yourself. You hear me? I know what you’re doing, and I’m telling you to knock it off.” A flicker of discomfort comes into Barnes’s gaze and Tony knows he’s hit the spot. “You don’t need to be hurt to have some time with me. Or time away from the others, whatever it is. Look--what if I came over a few times a week, hmm? I can work on whatever project I’ve got going on, and you can chill down here with me.”

Barnes’s eyes skitter away. Tony lays his hand over the man’s metal wrist, and the pressure brings Barnes’s attention back to him. Tony makes sure they’re looking at each other directly, making eye contact. He needs Barnes to listen to him. He needs to know that this nasty habit of his will stop. 

“Don’t hurt yourself anymore for me. Okay?”

It takes a few long moments, but eventually, Barnes responds. “Okay,” he says, and that’s good enough for Tony. With a little pat on his wrist, Tony goes back to fixing him up. Instead of sending him back up to the others, he keeps Barnes on the couch and starts up a movie--something from Rogers’s list of pop culture that the team had originally accrued for him, which Tony isn’t sure the man ever actually started, never mind tried to finish. He himself has too much work to do and ends up on one of his tablets, going over proposals and grants that Pepper has sent to him, but it’s okay. Barnes is… Content, at least, to sit with him. As long as he doesn’t go out and get himself hurt again, Tony is happy.

Barnes performs exceptionally better on the field from that day on.

Rhodey just about kills Tony when he finds out he’s been going over to the compound three times a week. He only settles because Tony still stands up for himself and won’t allow the Rogues  _ or _ Barnes to walk all over him. 

Plus, Rhodey can’t deny that  _ something _ good is coming from all this. Barnes continues to clean himself up. He surprises them all one day by coming to breakfast with his hair a good inch or two shorter than it had been, washed and dried, half of it pulled back into a simple fan bun. He doesn’t talk much more than he had, but he’s calmer; he doesn’t slink around the edges of the room, doesn’t reach for a knife every time someone gets too close, doesn’t respond in Russian when he’s asked a question.

Recovery isn’t linear and Barnes is a living example of that sometimes, but quite frankly, Rhodey is impressed enough with the improvements that he doesn’t do more than nag Tony for a week before letting the issue go. 

The downside is that with Tony around the compound more often, he can’t avoid the Rogues forever. 

They catch glances of him in the halls. He slips into the kitchen for coffee, the tail end of his favorite ratty jacket on his shoulders. He disappears into elevators, the faint glow of his arc reactor lighting up the darkened hall before the doors open, always sliding shut before the Rogues can actually follow. It annoys Rogers to no end; he still thinks that they need to be a ‘family’ again, as if they were ever a family in the first place. They’re still not very bright, though; it takes them a couple of weeks before they even figure out that Tony’s glimpses and Barnes’s disappearances line up perfectly. It’s another full week before Barnes comes down to the lab, his brow already raised as he settles into the stool beside Tony, where he’s already got his next project in hand. 

“Stevie told me that I should stay away from you,” he says simply. “Said that you’d take advantage of me. Thought I was keeping an eye on you to make sure you didn’t make another killer robot or somethin’, whatever he meant by that, and that I didn’t have to take on that responsibility.”

Despite himself, Tony feels a prick of coldness seep into his lungs. He knew that Rogers could be cruel, but it was direct proof that no, all the feigned interest and intrigue into his work after Ultron had not, in fact, been because Rogers cared. It’d been a way to keep him in check. A way to safeguard against another one of Tony’s inevitable mistakes. It makes his jaw tighten, his hand aching to sooth the scarlet print against his neck, though his voice stays steady. “Oh?” he asks. “And what did you say?”

Barnes’s smile is a little more sharp than usual, full of teeth. “I told him that he had better mind his own damn business ‘nd that I could do whatever the hell I felt like doing.”

It’s so surprising that Tony bursts into a laugh, his head drawing up from his project, crinkles at the corners of his eyes. “No. Really? Shit, Barnes, you’ve got a mouth on you, don’t you?”

Barnes is chuckling too, the sound deep and warm. “It’s true. He should keep his nose out of where it doesn’t belong. And--it’s James.” Tony’s laugh dies down some, and the second part of his words makes his head tilt to the side. Barnes clarifies. “My name. Bucky doesn’t feel right anymore. An’ it’s… It’s okay not to call me Barnes. We’re… Friends. Yeah?”

Something warm and indescribable twists up in Tony’s chest. His smile doesn’t fade. “Yeah. We’re friends. James it is, then--but only as long as you call me Tony, got it? No more of that Mr. Stark crap.” James laughs, but he agrees, and that’s what matters. Of course, Tony will keep giving him his nicknames, and James will keep adding to his arsenal of Russian endearments, but with each other’s names laying as secret blossoms at the backs of their throats, something opens up a little more between them. Something feels a little more…  _ Right. _

James is… James himself is indescribable. For the first time, Tony feels like the paint on his throat is a  _ promise _ , not a  _ curse. _

\---

It ends like this.

The Rogues push too far. It was bound to happen; Tony had known it from the moment the pardons came into discussion at the Accords meetings. Rogers is always so hell-bent on being right, on proving himself, that he can never leave well enough alone. Maximoff’s hatred is a slimy thing, ugly and destructive, and she worms her way into Rogers’s opinions, spins stories, pushes for what she wants. Together, they come up with a plan to make Tony talk to them--Rogers because he wants to let Tony know that they need to stop the childish game he is supposedly playing, and Maximoff because she loves to see him squirm, watch him suffer. 

It really isn’t difficult for them. They catch him when he tries to sneak into the kitchen for coffee, James asleep on the lab’s couch, tucked in with a blanket. Maximoff’s magic is cold and angry around him, refusing to let him move; it’s red, red like Steve’s prints on his sides, red like blood, red in a way that is  _ different _ than James’s red, which is warm and protective and encompassing. Rogers asks him questions, pushes for him to apologize to him, wants him to admit that everything was his fault, agree that they need to be a family again. And Tony fights,  _ fights _ against the words that come out of his mouth, copper tainted and fake, as the witch drags them up out of him against his will. 

The thing is, this isn’t a maintenance night. And Friday is  _ scared. _

The horror doesn’t last long before James is there. There is a fury in his eyes that Tony has never seen; the witch’s wrists break like glass in James’s grip, banishing the magic that holds Tony hostage as she screams, over and over. Steve doesn’t go down without a fight, convinced that Tony has done something to James, but he  _ does _ go down. James gets him knocked out before the rest of the Rogues show up. Barton tries to attack Tony; he doesn’t get a full two feet before he, too, is lying unconscious on the ground. Wilson and Romanoff stay back, out of the way, when the new Avengers show up to detain Rogers and Maximoff on orders by the Accords Council, Friday having streamlined the video feed to each and every one of them as soon as she was sure that James could handle the situation on his own. 

It’s… A lot to take in. James helps Rhodey bundle Tony into a car to take him back to the tower. Stephen looks him over, looks  _ into _ him, pulling away the last threads of Maximoff’s magic--and in the process, finds tendrils around James as well. It doesn’t take much to figure out that she’s been the source of his convoluted nightmares that involve Tony. Tony’s just glad that James never took the dreams as reason to turn against him, no matter how violent. Stephen removes those too, though he documents everything, and Tony is sent to rest. 

It’s an order that he only follows because James comes with him too, sitting vigil beside his bed, armed to the teeth and ready in case Rogers or Maximoff somehow gets free and comes for him--though he keeps his flesh hand free and uncovered, his fingers tangled lightly with Tony’s as the genius slips off into a deep, exhausted sleep. 

James, as it turns out, is more After than Before. Tony had suspected it. Rogers had refused it. Now, the separation is starkly clear, and the things that Rogers had condoned in an attempt to get the James of Before back end up being the things that are the final nail in the coffin at the Accords trial when it comes. 

Rogers is taken off active duty until at such a time that he agrees--and follows through with--a rigorous mental health and evaluation course, which he unsurprisingly refuses to cooperate with. Maximoff, with her permanently damaged hands, is locked up. Not in the Raft--Tony has long since gotten Ross himself incarcerated and the Raft shut down through his connections and influence  _ inside _ the Accords Council had allowed him to do. But she is locked up nevertheless, Stephen’s aid called upon to remove her magic from her, which he does quite happily, especially after seeing footage of her attack on Tony. 

Barton tries to break her out of jail. He fails; he is offered the choice of retiring or being incarcerated himself. Tony had thought the offer quite generous. He’s proved wrong when Barton does indeed land himself in jail. But Tony has had enough of taking the blame for what the Rogues do, and so he doesn’t put it on his shoulders. Barton made his choices. He was the one responsible, and always would be. 

Wilson and Romanoff distance themselves from the other three. They are allowed to stay on active duty, though they are separated and put into different teams. They take the change well; they had been blinded and fooled, and while Tony is indeed on his way to forgiving them eventually, they must face their own consequences as well. And James…

Well.

James’s request for a transfer is approved by the Accord’s Council and he moves into the tower with Tony. His recovery is not linear, even without the witch’s magic, but it is  _ his _ recovery. 

His hand is a warm, perfect pressure over the red on Tony’s throat as he tilts his head up for a kiss. He has a patch of red on his flesh shoulder that Tony thinks is perfect for biting down on when he takes him apart inch by inch in the bedroom.

He gains a streak of fond purple on his jaw from Pepper; he has curves of loyal blue fingers across his forearm from Rhodey helping him to his feet. He turns into a lovely patchwork of colors that Tony loves exploring. 

But most of all? Most of all, Tony belongs to James. And James belongs to  _ him. _

Maybe red isn’t such a bad color after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Please consider supporting me & my writing by [buying me a ko-fi.](https://ko-fi.com/missjupitcr)


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